Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger V. Colting, the Promotion-Of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime John M
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University of Miami Law School University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository Articles Faculty and Deans 2011 Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime John M. Newman Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/fac_articles Part of the Intellectual Property Law Commons Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Fri Oct 4 12:34:05 2019 Citations: Bluebook 20th ed. John M. Newman, Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime, 96 Iowa L. Rev. 737 (2011). ALWD 6th ed. John M. Newman, Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime, 96 Iowa L. Rev. 737 (2011). APA 6th ed. Newman, J. M. (2011). Holden caulfield grows up: Salinger v. colting, the promotion-of-progress requirement, and market failure in derivative-works regime. Iowa Law Review, 96(2), 737-760. Chicago 7th ed. John M. Newman, "Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime," Iowa Law Review 96, no. 2 (January 2011): 737-760 McGill Guide 9th ed. John M Newman, "Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime" (2011) 96:2 Iowa L Rev 737. MLA 8th ed. Newman, John M. "Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime." Iowa Law Review, vol. 96, no. 2, January 2011, p. 737-760. HeinOnline. OSCOLA 4th ed. John M Newman, 'Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime' (2011) 96 Iowa L Rev 737 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at https://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your license, please use: Copyright Information Use QR Code reader to send PDF to your smartphone or tablet device Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger v. Colting, the Promotion-of-Progress Requirement, and Market Failure in a Derivative-Works Regime John M. Newman* ABSTRACT: In 2009, the pseudonymous 'John David California" announced plans for U.S. publication of 6o Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, a "sequel" to JD. Salinger's canonical novel The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger reacted swiftly, bringing a copyright- infingement suit to enjoin publication of the new work. The district court granted the injunction, effectively banning U.S. distribution of the sequel and unintentionally illustrating modern copyright law's troubling divergence from the purpose of the constitutional grant of copyright authority to Congress. Economic analysis demonstrates the tension caused by the repeated, incremental expansion of copyright protections-at some point, the Copyright Act will fail to incentivize the net dissemination of new works. A check on congressional authority is needed. While a multitude of scholars have advocated for the First Amendment to serve as such, this Note proposes that the "promotion-ofpprogress" requirement of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitutionprovides a superior alternativeto direct FirstAmendment scrutiny. Thus, where the Copyright Act fails to encourage artisticoutput- and, as applied to situations like Salinger v. Colting, it almost certainly does-the Act is unconstitutional. I. INTRODUCTION ..................................... ....... 739 II. UTILITARIANISM AND THE MODERN DERIVATIVE-WORKS RIGHT.......... 742 * J.D. Candidate, The University of Iowa College of Law, 201 1; B.A., Iowa State University, 2007. For their excellent suggestions and counterarguments, I would like to thank Professor Stewart Sterk and Professor Thomas F. Cotter. For sharing her wisdom, guidance, and considerable expertise, I would like to thank Professor Christina Bohannan, who consistently manages to make studying law fun. For their diligence in editing this Note, I am grateful to the editors and student writers of Volumes 95 and 96 of this journal. To my family, friends, and Rachel: thank you. 737 738 IOWA LAWREVIEW [Vol. 96:737 A. THE UTILITARANFOUNDATIONS OF U.S. COPYRIGHTLAW............... 742 B. THE EcoNoMICs OF COPYRIGHT'S DERIVATIVE-WORKS PROTECTION.. 743 III. A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT: THE UNEASY CASE FOR APPLYING FIRST AMENDMENT SCRUTINY TO COPYRIGHT LAw......... ............... 747 A. PROBLEMS WITH CONSTRUCTING A FRAMEWORK FORFRST AMENDMENT SCRUTINY OF COPYRIGHT. .......................... 748 B. THE COPYRIGHT ACT'S INTERNAL FREE-SPEECHSAFEGUARDS ............ 749 IV. THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CLAUSE: INTERNAL LIMITS ON THE CONSTITUTIONALLY PERMISSIBLE SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT LAW.............. 750 A. PROMOTION OFPROGRESS AND THE "ENGINE OFFREE EXPRESSION"... 751 B. PROMOTION OF PROGRESS AS A LIMITATION ON CONGRESSIONAL COPYRIGHTAUTHORiTTY.................................. 752 V. PUTrING IT ALL TOGETHER: PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE INTERNAL LIMITS ON CONGRESSIONAL COPYRIGHT AUTHORITY TO SALINGER V. COLTING .............................. ..................... 753 A. DERIVATIVE-WORKS RIGHTS AN)JD. SALINGER'S INCENTIVES To AUTHOR THE CATCHER IN THE RYE............. .............. 754 i. Salinger's Exclusive Right To Prepare Derivative Works .... 755 2. Salinger's Exclusive Right Not To Prepare Derivative Works?. ....................................... 755 B. THIS APPICATION OF THE COPYRIGHTACT WAS LIKELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL .................................... ....... 757 VI. CONCLUSION .................................... .. ............. 758 201i] HOLDEN CAULFIELD GROWS UP 739 I. INTRODUCTION Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learnfrom them-if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. -The Catcher in the Rye' A young Holden Caulfield received this advice from Mr. Antolini, his former English teacher, in J.D. Salinger's acclaimed masterpiece The Catcher in the Rye ("Catcher").2 Salinger, writing in the late 1940s, was describing the same phenomenon Zechariah Chafee identified only a few years earlier, that there is no such thing as a wholly original thought-each "new" creation owes a debt to the prior art.3 It is not difficult to imagine a young Salinger penning these lines as a thinly veiled homage to his own influences.4 Over the years, however, Salinger withdrew further and further from his formerly active role in contributing to literary dialogue.5 He became something of a i. J.D. SALINGER, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE 246 (1951). 2. Id. Catcher has become one of the most influential and popular books in modern literature. Time magazine's website, for example, included it in a list of the 1oo greatest English- language novels from 1923 to 2005. Lev Grossman & Richard Lacayo, All Time 1oo Novels, TIME, http://www.time.com/time/200 5 /loobooks/the-complete_1ist.html (last visited Oct. 24, 2010). More than half a century after its initial publication, it remains a staple of high-school curricula across the United States. Jennifer Schuessler, Get a Life, Holden, N.Y. TIMES, June 21, 200g, at WK5 . Even today, readers purchase over 250,000 copies annually, and the total number of copies in print has topped 65,ooo,ooo. The Catcher in the Rye, ABSOLUTE ASTRONOMY, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/TheCatcherinthe-Rye (last visited Oct. 24, 2010). 3. Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Reflections on the Law of Copyright: 1, 45 COLUM. L. REv. 503, 511 (1945) ("The world goes ahead because each of us builds on the work of our predecessors. 'A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant himself.'"). Legal scholar and historian George Ticknor Curtis also observed this phenomenon in the original edition of his treatise on copyright, the first comprehensive survey of U.S. copyright law. GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS, A TREATISE ON THE LAw OF COPYRIGHT 240 (photo. reprint 2006) (Boston, Charles C. Little &James Brown 1847). 4. Perhaps foremost among them was fellow literary giant Ernest Hemingway. While serving in the U.S. Army in France during World War II, Salinger arranged to meet with Hemingway, then serving as a war correspondent, to show Hemingway some of his work. Having read it, Hemingway reportedly remarked, "Jesus, he has a helluva talent," then shot the head off a nearby chicken with his sidearm. Jack Skow, Sonny: An Introduction,TIME, Sept. 15, 1961, at 84, 88, availableat http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/o,g 71, 9 3 8775,oo.html. 5. See Complaint at 4, Salinger v. Colting, 641 F. Supp. 2d 250 (S.D.N.Y. 20og) (No. og Civ. 5095), 2009 WL 1529592 ("Salinger published actively from 1940 through 1965, and has not published any new works since that time."). 740 IOWA LAWREVIEW [Vol. 96:737 recluse, emerging from his solitude only to battle, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be, for protection of his intellectual property.6 In 2009, Fredrik Colting, then a relatively unknown author, announced plans for U.S. publication of a work titled 6o Years Later.- Coming Through the Rye ("6o Years Late?').7 Several characters